An Improbable Way Back Home
by Transcending-Snow
Summary: On their way home from the Invasion of Normandy...well mishaps happen. Now it's up to Penny and Sherman to get them back home. Definite elements of Sherman x Penny with a healthy dose of adventure.
1. The Normandy Invasion

**Alright, this is Chapter 1. I just watched the movie finally and went back to watch some of the classic shorts and got inspired. I haven't written a piece of FanFiction since 2008! Anyway, I think this will be a good one. Enjoy!**

The amphibious vessels ground to a nerve-shattering halt into the sands of Omaha beach along the shores of Normandy. Soldiers, from the steely-eyed veterans to the quaking greenies, stared at the ramp that would momentarily descend, plunging them into a world of grinding metal, explosive thunder, and agonized screams. D-day had come and the Axis powers were more than ready for them.

As boot first touched once clean sand, now red with the blood of soldiers that came before them, two 17 year old children watched grimly from their invisible perch, 20 yards above the scene. Sherman Peabody and Penny Peterson watched as young men steadily gave their life for their country and the world. Standing inside the WABAC, the Wavelength Acceleration Bidirectional Asynchronous Controller, Penny and Sherman were shielded not just from the sight of those below but from the sounds of the gruesome scene. The sight of the battle was ample evidence of the sacrifices of the soldiers and seeing they were learning the history lesson well, Mr. Peabody nodded in approval from his seat at the nearby helm.

"The battle today rages along 5 separate beaches along the coast of Normandy. By the time it ends, German casualties will number 1,000. Allied casualties at least 12,000."

"We lost! You brought us to a battle that we lose?" Sherman exclaimed, disbelievingly.

"On the contrary, Sherman. The foothold we make along this shore today gives a strong starting point to march against German controlled Eastern Europe and the freeing of France. The blood shed on the beach below you is paid in the pursuit of freedom for all people and an end to tyranny."

Sherman and Penny nodded slowly in understanding. Since Penny had started traveling with them those many years ago, Mr. Peabody had used the WABAC to take them to increasingly exotic and far-away places, eras where the gods were the answer to life's ailments or witchcraft was the world's version of practicing medicine. As they had matured in their age and understanding, he had also begun to invite them to some of history's more distasteful periods. The Black Death. The Dark Ages. The fall of Camelot. Never before though had Penny and Sherman seen so much death and so quickly. As men fell beneath them, their hands quietly found each other.

"Mr. Peabody, I think we've probably seen enough for today," Penny said, a slight tremble to her voice. She had come to relish these field trips with Sherman and his dad. She had seen sights no modern human dared to hope to see. She had run with a herd of Dromiceiomimus dinosaurs. Sherman and she had stood atop the Eifel tower hours after it had been built! Forget playing "Ring around the Rosy" in the school yard, she had played it with kids in the Middle Ages when the nursery rhyme had been invented, a way to find humor in the death that surrounded them. But sometimes, like today, she needed a break from history.

"Quite right, Penny," Mr. Peabody responded quietly. "Quite right."

As the genius canine began to set the proper coordinates, Sherman pulled Penny a little closer, understanding that they both needed comfort at a time such as this. Time. The concept had a different meaning for Sherman who was in some ways a child of the time stream himself. There were whole blocks of his life span spent more in the past than the present. Mr. Peabody would have to occasionally bring them back a month or two after they left and then make up excuses for where they were all because Sherman couldn't look older than he was supposed to be. Sherman was lucky enough to study at the hands of some of history's greatest thinkers and perhaps its very greatest, his adoptive parent himself.

Still, Sherman was worried of late. Mr. Peabody was not as young and spry as he once was. Dogs normally just don't live as long as Mr. Peabody already had. At the age of 20 he was positively ancient by canine standards. Sherman knew in his younger days, Peabody had taken scientific measures to extend his life but it was evident that those measures could only last so long. The loving father used a cane now to get along. He had picked up a breathing problem for which he carried a portable oxygen pump to use during bouts of breathlessness. He no longer left the WABAC on these trips, excusing himself from Penny and Sherman's adventures under the excuse that "none of these eras are very handicap accessible." Sherman loved his father, but he was afraid he would lose him far sooner than he could ever be prepared for.

As Mr. Peabody's hand descended to the button to transport them home, far below a bullet exploded from the muzzle of an Allied soldier's gun. It ripped through the smoke-filled air, leaving delicate tendrils in its wake. It glanced off the sturdy metal hull of a gunner's nest along the rocky cliff overhead and continued at a deflected angle, now steadily more skyward. Soaring, it shot millimeters from a startled peregrine falcon and continued its ascent. Just when it seemed it could not possible soar further, it made contact with…nothing. Or it would have seemed like nothing. Invisible to all but some avian species, the bullet made a nick in a piece of invisible tubing marked in capital letters, "FUEL LINE."


	2. The White Hole Misdirection

**I hope you enjoyed Chapter 1! Here is Chapter 2 where our heroes find themselves somewhere they didn't intend to go.**

The trip through hyperspace seemed rougher than usual. Each successive azure ring of quantum energy they passed through seemed to bring another shudder throughout the sphere of red tiles as it, now visible, hurtled through time and space. Peabody shrugged it off. The readings on his display looked normal and it wasn't unheard of for local solar flares or black holes to make their journey home more interesting than usual. Rare. But not unheard of.

As Peabody contemplated the path home, Penny and Sherman sat behind him, perched in their swivel seats and sharing meaningful looks. What had started as a great intellectual rivalry had blossomed first into a partnership and finally into true friendship. Penny no longer cared what kids at school whispered behind her back, what tables she was excluded from at lunch. What could any of that possibly matter now, now that she was Penny Peterson, inductee of the warrior tribe of the Amazons, slayer of the blood-thirsty Egyptian god Sobek (turned out to just be a crocodile on a growth spurt), and contributor to the Great Wall of China! And Sherman, how could she ever be ashamed of the boy-turned-man who had by the age of 16 written a campaign speech for President Lincoln, faced Genghis Khan on the fields of Mongolia, and (without Peabody's knowledge) relocated the entire populace of Pompeii, replacing them with realistic mannequin duplicates in time for Volcano Day. They were both heroes of history in their own right and no child in the suburbs of New York City could ever hope to comprehend what that truly meant.

Still, they were very much 16. 16. An age when Sherman made her nervous just by standing too close. A time in her life where she checked her hair 5 times on the elevator ride up to the penthouse. Aside from his feats of cunning, ingenuity, and thoughtfulness, Sherman had developed into a dashing, athletic, and courageous young man, not entirely lacking in the muscles department or short on good looks. He still had a mop of unruly orange hair atop his spectacled face but on 16 year-old Sherman, the look worked for him. They were friends, sure. But Penny often wondered to herself how much longer they could stay "just friends."

Penny was roused form her thoughts by a commotion at the front of the pod. Mr. Peabody was making increasingly frustrated noises as he pounded at the controls and twirled knob after knob. It wasn't like the professor to lose his composure which made Penny more nervous than anything else.

"Is something wrong, dad?" Sherman asked, starting to inch his chair forward via its arm-rest remote control. By now Sherman was well-versed in flying the WABAC, handy for the increasingly frequent event that Peabody was sound asleep by the time he and Penny made it back from their history lesson assignment.

"We may be in trouble, Sherman. A rare white hole is blocking our path home and I'm having trouble coaxing enough power to navigate around it!" It wasn't like Peabody to be an alarmist. By his preference, every answer would be responded to with an even toned precise response but for once in his life, he was truly worried. The fuel gage was dipping lower much faster than it usually should and at its current rate of descent would bottom out long before he could manage to skirt the exploding point of space, shooting eons of light and matter from a matching black hole on the other side of the galaxy. For the first time in his life, the way ahead was completely occluded. He couldn't see a path to victory where normally he could see seven. Was he finally getting old enough to make these trips dangerous? Was he no longer fit to navigate the waves of the intergalactic sea?

"There has to be a solution! Are we near enough to the Renaissance? We could pop in 5 minutes after we left on our last energy trip and just use the same device!" Sherman exclaimed excitedly, proud to hopefully be contributing.

"It's no good, Sherman. Time isn't the problem, we were close enough to modern eras to make the jump through time relatively easily. What we're lacking in is space. To make it back to where the Earth is now in its modern orbit, I plotted a course across the Solar System. We're in the middle of that trek now so coming out of time jump would place us roughly in… the Sun. How stellar." Peabody muttered, instinctively making a wry joke.

"I don't get it." Sherman said reflexively. It was a game they played. Of course by now Sherman could understand the pun but when he was younger the humor of his furry father would often fly right over his head.

"What about the White Hole?" Penny inquired. "Can we use that to push us where we need to go?"

"Penny! What a wonderful idea. I've never thought of that. Let's see, calculating the launch velocity by the quantum gallops in our trail, divide by the sea of tranquilities pull on the astral projection…carry the 4… I think it will work! I hope…" Peabody muttered.

Sherman, content there at least appeared to be a path to save their lives, decided to overlook his father's moment of uncertainty. "Take us home then, Mr. Peabody. I believe in you…dad."

Peabody smiled at the boy. He twirled 4 dials, cranked on a lever, and slammed the red button home, plotting a course directly into the fountain of white light before them. As they neared closer, the shaking in the sphere grew steadily more abrupt, throwing Penny from her seat at one point, luckily into the waiting arms of Sherman, anticipating her fall. Tendrils of light and what looked like plasma of purples, pinks, greens, and blues swirled around the front window, bathing them in its twisting game of celestial tag.

Suddenly the craft shuddered more violently than before. It began to spin faster and faster.

"Mr. Peabody, what's happening?" Sherman managed to get out.

"I don't know, Sherman! We appear to be getting bombarded with a strange form of energy. I've never seen anything like this before!"

The centrifugal force seemed unbearable to Sherman now. He had trained at the NASA astronaut training facilities, well the ones they had in 1969 at least, and nothing they had subjected him to could prepare him for this. Just when he felt himself blacking out, it stopped as suddenly as it started. His head spinning and blood slowly draining from his head, Sherman's vision began to return. Bright light streamed from the window, illuminating the room in bright incandescent hues. The ship also seemed to be sitting at a slight angle starboard. Not much could be seen from the window except for tall leafy plants and the trunk of an enormous tree.

"Penny, Mr. Peabody, are you two okay?" Sherman mumbled, his tongue feeling too large for his mouth. Once they had both responded in the affirmative, Sherman got out of his seat and processed to the instrument panel.

"Dad, where are we? Central Park?" Sherman asked. He was usually very adept at reading the odd display of units and numbers that Mr. Peabody had invented just to make time travel possible. With his head spinning and the ground seeming to move beneath his feet, however, he found himself quite incapable of the task.

"Sherman, I'm afraid we're not quite in New York City, or at least it's not called that yet…" Mr. Peabody trailed off.

A feeling of disbelief settled in his stomach, "You mean we're in early America, pre-colonization? Just how far back did that White Hole shoot us?" By the look of the vegetation outside, he probably should have been able to guess that. New York didn't have trees that big in Central Park or anywhere else. It was massive around with a brown-gray tent. It was strange it almost seemed to be moving, swaying back and forth, likely in the wind from up above.

"Sherman, we've landed here a long time before man or early hominid will ever set foot. Here…or anywhere. This is the Late Jurassic. And Sherman…that's not a tree."

As Mr. Peabody spoke, the leg, for that is what it was, lifted from their view, marching past their vessel as a tail as long as a block in Brooklyn swayed past, narrowly missing a devastating crash with the WABAC.

"Well," Sherman sighed, "this is new."


	3. The Cretaceous Introduction

**Welcome to Chapter 3! Just a quick note, I introduced this time in history as the late Jurassic in the last chapter. We're all going to change that to the late Cretaceous, savvy? Exactly why will be made clear in this chapter. Enjoy! On a side note, if there are any specific hijinks you'd like the characters to get into, sound it off in the reviews. Everything will be considered! Thanks!**

"The late Cretaceous?" Sherman exclaimed. "But Mr. Peabody, we've never traveled to this era!"

"And it is right that we haven't. If I'm reading this panel correctly, and, well, of course I am, we are dangerously close to the mass extinction event that directly led to the end of the dinosaurs. Kids, our first priority is going to be figuring out what's wrong with the WABAC and getting us home!"

The two teenagers nodded in agreement while Penny inwardly marveled at how quickly situations could change with the Peabody's. One moment they were eating a snack of purple grapes and celery with organic peanut butter, next they were marveling at the bloodshed in Normandy, and now, before she could catch her breath, they were dodging dinosaurs. What could even the next hour bring?

With Peabody's difficulty getting around, it would fall to Penny and Sherman to collect the resources they would need and survey the ship to assess for any damage. Penny was relieved when the canine prodigy ordered them not to split up. It wasn't that she was scared…okay maybe a little scared. These were dinosaurs after all and not all of them would be herbivores. But she also had grown to relish in her time alone with Sherman. There was no one she trusted more and no one she would rather explore a new world with. She understood him as he understood her. They often didn't have to say a word on excursions to know what the other needed, soundlessly handing a collection jar or giving a boost to the second floor balcony of Queen Cleopatra's palace. They were the best of teams.

That's not to say they didn't talk. Because they did…incessantly. They often couldn't get enough of talking with each other, continuing long after they returned to the WABAC until Mr. Peabody would have to order 5 minutes of silence so he could think straight. They would then fall into occasional giggles from Penny or chuckles from Sherman and lots of silent messages shared only with their eyes.

As they progressed down the levitating steps of the WABAC, Mr. Peabody instructed them to point their cameras at the hull and he would monitor the footage from the Captain's chair. The unearthed dirt from their landing was soft beneath their feet, slightly spongy with a little bit of bounce. The air smelled like fresh linen, or at least the way fresh linen should smell if the pictures on the bottle were any indication. One thing was certain, the New York of the future where everything ran on cow flatulence, a clean but pungent alternative fuel, was a long way off.

Sherman progressed clockwise around the sphere as Penny made her way in reverse, both slowly panning their camcorders up and down the height of the ship. Sherman didn't have his mind quite in the job though. He was always this way at first when they landed on a new planet, as he liked to think of them. In his mind, everywhere they went could be far off on the other side of the universe, a distant drama that he was able to partake in and influence, spreading his touch to all corners of existence. It was a daydream, anyway.

Sherman searched through the tall tree tops for signs of life, any sign of movement, some indication of what their time here would be like. He was, in a way, looking for danger, but also for adventure. Ever since he had met Penny she had inspired in him a call of the wild, so to say, a thirst for new thrills and a desire to go further than he ever had. It was just one of the positive influences she had on him even if Mr. Peabody would still mutter under his breath "Hooligan" every now and then, only half-way meaning it. Sherman couldn't blame him. It couldn't be easy seeing your son transform from one of constant obedience to willful independence. As Peabody grew older, it became more difficult to bail Sherman and Penny out of the jams they would find themselves which forced them to become more self-sufficient, often taking on the persona of their mentor if only to try and think up an elaborate plan out of a predicament. Sometimes it even worked! Sometimes…

"Sherman, what do you think of this plant life? It's massive!" Penny asked, gazing at a fern three times taller than she was.

"I know, and they look really similar to some plants we have back home, only bigger. I think Peabody has that one in a pot in the kitchen." Sherman said, pointing to a particularly colorful tulip with petals five feet long.

"Alright you two, I have the footage I need. I'll go over it while you gather the supplies I listed and see if I can spot any abnormalities. We're one step closer to getting home!" Peabody exclaimed, trying to keep spirits high. Inside he worried though, the late Cretaceous was no place for a couple of teenagers, capable though they may be. The fact that this was the reign of Tyrannosaurus Rex may be the least of their worries with what dangers lurked in the jungles.

But no, worrying like that wouldn't help anything. He would just have to trust he had prepared the two adequately for their mission. They truly were two of the most impressive humans he knew. The way they adapted to any situation always made him proud. It also hadn't escaped his notice how they relied upon each other, trusted each other. "Two peas in a pod, those two," Peabody chuckled quietly to himself.

"What was that, Mr. Peabody?" Sherman asked.

"Uh, nothing, Sherman, just good luck you two. I know you'll make me proud!"

With that, the two embarked, hand-in-hand, each telling themselves it was for stability against the uneven terrain.

Peabody began to scrub through the high-definition footage of the outside of the ship.

Deep in the forest, a pterosaur nest began to rise with the early dawn.

A sauropod loped towards the local watering hole.

A cloud bank moved in from the east.

And high above, beyond the stratosphere and ozone, beyond the moon's decidedly more elliptical orbit than modern man would recognize, a behemoth of a rock crept silently through the black.

Waiting.

Waiting.


	4. The Race Towards Disaster

**And…Chapter 4! What awaits our heroes in a land beyond time? Keep the reviews coming, thanks!**

"The wind's picking up," Sherman observed.

"I know, and I don't like the looks of those clouds. I think that one is glaring at me." Penny remarked, chewing on her bottom lip.

"Well, we still have another couple miles to the pitch swamp Mr. Peabody pointed out. I guess we should just keep going and hope it blows over, right?"

"Yeah, I guess…" Penny trailed off. This wasn't Penny's first time in the Age of the Dinosaurs, not even her first in the Cretaceous. Never before had it felt so serious, though, with Mr. Peabody confined to the WABAC and the ominous way he had said they needed to get out of here with "great haste!" Penny was worried and, as always, trying not to show it, least of all to Sherman.

"Hey, I'll race you to that giant oak up ahead. Loser has to carry the pitch all the way back!," she challenged, and, without waiting for a reply, sprinted ahead, sneakers digging into dry prehistoric dirt.

"Why do you get a head start?" Sherman exclaimed, struggling to shift so suddenly into sprint mode.

"Come on, Sherman, what is it Peabody always says? 'Always be prepared for any situation!'" Penny practically broke down giggling over her impression of the canine guardian but managed to keep her composure enough to maintain her lead on Sherman. She knew they were basically an even match on the track so her lead should keep him chasing her heels for a while.

She looked back. Sure enough, his face was bobbing just feet behind her, grinning from ear to ear. They're eyes met and suddenly this was no longer just a childhood game they had done a thousand times before. Suddenly, it felt more real, more intense. Part of her wanted to stop, let him catch her, hold her…

She shook it off, if only mentally. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she was shuddering at catching his eye. When her eyes raised to his again, her breath caught when she realized his had widened with horror. A word was coming to his lips, not yet free of its laryngeal cage. Her head whipped forward in time to feel her feet fail to meet resistance. No longer was there dirt and grass beneath her soles but a chasm of stale air that reeked of death and finality. She was falling, she was falling and there was nothing nearby she could use to stop it. She had no choices now, nothing she could decide. In space, with nothing around you, you are the ultimate island of isolation.

Her feelings of weightlessness suddenly vanished. In an instant, she had mass again, a body again, she was real. Looking up, Sherman had his hand grasping her forearm firmly while the other was wrapped several times through a long, thick vine hanging from the giant oak so far above. She could see now that she had fallen into a deep narrow ravine stretched right next to the Oak. She could see giant roots sticking through and expanding the breadth of the chasm, penetrating the ground on the other side.

Looking down, she could see now that it was not merely blackness. Far below were the gray outlines of rocks, mud, and, she shuddered, the pearly white of bleached bone. That was almost her. Almost, if not for Sherman. She gazed up at his straining face and realized that beyond the strain of holding her up, when he caught her his other arm became tightly encased in the vine, the thick green rope now digging into his flesh.

"Penny, I need you to grab the vine. Hurry!" Sherman managed to huff out.

Quickly, she grasped the vine with one arm, wrapped her legs around it, and let go of Sherman, transferring her remaining hand in the process. "Sherman…Sherman…thank God for you, Sherman," was all she could get out.

And with that they began to climb.

8 miles away to the West, a dog slowly scanned through image after image of the WABAC, trying to find just what had happened. He, of course, had his suspicions, but due to the risk of confirmation bias, he refused to go immediately to the most likely area, carefully scanning the rest of the device. Nothing was out of the ordinary until he came to Sector 9-M, half-way down on the port side. There, where stabilizer fin met the main body were two black snakes where one should have been, both showing their insides proudly to the camera. Mr. Peabody rubbed his eyes. As he feared, a stray bullet must have found the WABAC, despite what should have been a safe distance given the weapons capabilities of the time.

On the bright side, the pitch and other materials he had sent the kids after would be just what he needed to repair it. On the negative, Mr. Peabody was going to have to come up with a way to power the craft. Slowly his eyes trailed towards the near-Earth radar he had been running since shortly after they arrived. Gradually, Mr. Peabody, the dog genius, had an idea.

Sherman and Penny huddled in a cave near the Oak tree. By the time they had pulled themselves out of the pit, the storm clouds from the east had crept practically on top of them. With electricity arcing all around them and the trees acting as particularly effective lightning rods, they reasoned they needed to seek protection prior to becoming the first cooked food in Prehistoric history. As they crossed the cave threshold, the rain hit, thundering upon the Earth's surface, tiny cannonballs peppering anything in sight of the sky.

Settling down on some soft moss, Penny looked at Sherman and Sherman looked at Penny and there was silence between them. Almost instantaneously they both burst into laughter. Tears came to their eyes in merriment as Sherman doubled over and Penny just laid back into the musty-smelling bed. Finally, they both calmed down and settled for staring listlessly at the cave roof, listening to the rain.

"Hey, Penny?"

"Yes, Sherman?"

"I'm…really glad you're okay. We get into a lot of tough scrapes and sometimes I almost lose you and…I'm just not sure I've ever really told you. I'm…just really glad you're okay."

Penny felt tears leap again to her eyes, of a different variety than before. "Sherman, I've almost lost you too. I've seen you go over Niagra Falls, imprisoned in a barrel while I had to watch. I've seen you thrown from a plane without a parachute. We always make it through but I'm always afraid this is the time we don't. Sherman…thank you for saving me. Thank you for being my hero."

Their heads turned to stare into each other's eyes. Those round, auburn eyes, so full of intelligence and hope. She loved those eyes. She loved… And then she was kissing him. Kissing him through salty tears and bruised lips. Kissing him because it was the right thing, the only thing she could do now. She vaguely was aware that he was kissing her back, holding her to him. Lips parted and met again. Heavy, CO2 laden breath met hers, mingling in her nose and her throat. Years of bonding, hours of adventures, a lifetime of trust, all of it come to a steady rise in each kiss. She could feel how close they had grown, how well she knew him. Each kiss was a reminder of a moment they had shared, a thrill they had experienced, a time he had saved her or she had saved him. This kiss was for pulling her from a steadily closing Egyptian tomb. The next for when he held her in the front of the horse of Troy while the whole contraption began to fall around them.

He knew they had to stop and so did she. Slowly, reluctantly, their kissing slowed, until they finally settled their heads back down to gaze into each other's eyes. Such beautiful, slanting azure eyes. He loved those eyes, got lost in those eyes when he didn't think she noticed. Now, it didn't matter, he could stare into those eyes forever and who could object?

"Sherman," Penny whispered, "I love you. Do you know that? Because I do. I love you. I don't know when it started but I think I've loved you for a long, long time."

Sherman's eyes shown with excitement and…yes…that was love in his eyes. Penny knew he loved her, knew it without him even saying it. She had probably known that for a long time as well. So, before he could say anything, she kissed him again and they held each other close, drifting off into a dreamless sleep.


End file.
